Can red leaf stems/petioles on maple seedlings indicate a clone of the parent tree? Last November I dug up a small Sugar Maple seedling out of my grandmothers flower bed. It was about 9 inches tall and the leafs had red petioles on them. It was a seed off a maple by her garage. I aways wandered what the red metiols meant. I know red maples normally have red petioles but I've seen that on sugar and silver maple seedlings to. Thanks.